Newsarama has more news from Raymond James & Associates about Artisan’s Man-Thing adaptation. Here’s what the financial company says about the Marvel (MVL) project…

Filming began on a movie based on MVL’s Man-Thing character last week in Australia. Production is expected to wrap up next March with the film being released sometime in 2004. This will be a low budget movie with MVL putting up no capital. The economics are still unclear, but it is an equity deal similar to that of the Punisher (the split is also assumed to be 50/50). In return for the character, MVL will own a portion of the film and a portion of all revenue streams from that film.

Man-Thing is a minor character in the Marvel library, and we suspect this could be a direct to video product. Recall that we had spoken a couple months ago about the prospect of MVL testing the direct to video market with some of their minor characters. I believe this may be the first film in such a market. The budget on such a film would be in the $5 million range. With MVL putting up none of the capital, the risk is very low. If successful, this could open a new distribution channel for MVL’s smaller properties. This channel could also be a development step for certain characters to grow their brand (remember that Blade was a minor Marvel character and is now on its third movie).